The Elder Lands

Chapter 39: Perish or Die

Wounds were dressed, Blessings were handled, and armors scrutinized. After that, Lucan prepared them to move again. There was no time to waste, after all, considering Heath’s condition. It took a lot of debate and even a little bit of coercion for Thorley to agree to be Heath’s support. The two of them would walk beside Lilian in the safest place in their shrinking formation.

They got on their feet, Clifton taking the rear, Heath leaning his weight on Thorley, and Lucan leading with Cordell and Ryder. Lilian leveled a concerned glance at a pale Heath before they moved.

Lucan glanced behind at everyone one last time before he led them up the passage.

They moved at a moderate pace, mindful of their exhaustion and injuries but also eager to get out of the Labyrinth sooner rather than later. They traced their steps back through the passageways they’d taken, trudging along dutifully.

It wasn’t long, however, before they all felt something. A thump, perhaps. It came from ahead, beyond a bend in their path.

The thumps were heavy but tardy, and came one at a time. Lucan glanced back at Clifton who shook his head, apparently as uncertain as everyone else of what it was.

Lucan signaled everyone to slow their pace and move quietly, then they all crept forward, rounding the bend cautiously. Until they came upon it.

At first, Lucan didn’t truly recognize its existence, because its color and texture matched the gravel under their feet. What got his attention was the sudden darkness in their path, which had him believe that they’d come across another one of the Kewmer Wyrm parts of the passage. Yet all feet came to a stop, even before they realized what was ahead of them, as though something instinctive had urged them to halt.

It blinked its eyes languidly, perhaps more unaware of them than they had been unaware of it. Its saurian head stretched from side to side, extending from a reptilian body kept high off the ground by four stout legs. Its scales were the black of their rocky surroundings. The beast’s size was ideal for their surroundings too, its girth filling the passage just enough to block all light from beyond but not so much as to graze the walls.

The beast took them in for a moment, seemingly uncertain of what it perceived. A snake-like tongue flicked out of its mouth and tasted the air, and its head tilted in puzzlement before rearing back and–

Before it could do more, Lucan had given the command. With a shout loud enough to echo down the passage, they ran the other way.

“What in the hells was that?” Ryder yelled as they ran.

“Something we mustn’t fight,” Cordell answered him.

Lucan maneuvered his way past Heath and Thorley to run beside Clifton who had his shield ready as he ran, perhaps as wary of the return of Archsal’awas as he was.

Lucan yelled back at the others, “the Archsal’awas are still down there. We could be pincered!”

“And if we are?” Thorley said while straining to support Heath with their current pace.

“Then we break the weaker of two jaws,” Lucan said. “There’s no returning to that thing.”

Their formation was in shambles as they ran, with no clear line to face any approaching threat. Lucan forwent a rearguard as well, since it would serve no purpose against the thing that was chasing them. They could hear its thumps more frequently now. It didn’t roar or screech. The only herald of its approach was the thumping of its heavy legs.

Lucan urged everyone to increase their pace, noting that Thorley wasn’t supporting Heath alone anymore but had Lilian’s help. The rest of them were alert and wary of any threats that might jump at them with their current pace.

After a while and as ragged breaths came out of dry mouths, they came upon their first impediment.

“They’ve brought their friends,” Ryder growled.

Lucan observed the group of Archsal’awas that were ahead of them. He couldn’t disagree with Ryder. It seemed that the two that had slipped away from them had returned to wherever the Archsal’awas nested and brought back reinforcements. He couldn’t count them properly with how hectic everything was, but he saw the surprise in the beasts’ posture, perhaps from the pace at which they were approaching them or the echoes of the heavy thumps that followed them.

“We don’t stop,” Lucan said resolutely. “Cut through them!.”

He raised his shield high to his shoulder, bracing his pauldron against it and aiming at a gap between two of the beasts.

The distance between human and beast shrunk rapidly until they were upon each other.

As claws rose to meet him, Lucan, still braced behind his shield, used his Star and moved to its forwardmost point, then he dismissed the star and chained another use of it instantly, moving forward once more. The idea had come to him on the spot, and he’d not given it much thought, hoping that it would work for his purposes.

It did. He speared through the clump of beasts, though he heard the wood in his shield finally give in and break, turning into a misshapen mess of wood and steel that could no longer be called a shield. When he came to a stop, he discarded it and immediately saw claws coming for his face. He crouched and the claws of multiple Archsal’awas clashed against each other instead of against his head. He had his sword in one hand and unsheathed his dagger with the other. When he rose from his crouch, he rose with a storm of blades, spinning with sword and dagger, his Wraith Strike lighting up the blades and slicing off hands and arms. The rest of his party clashed with the beasts and any semblance of understanding was lost to the mayhem.

In the chaos of the fight, Lucan parried claws, split open fur and hide, saw Cordell struggling to free his spear from an impaled beast, caught sight of a spike of ice piercing the eye of an Archsal’awa, and admired Ryder’s bladecraft as he carved through two of the beasts masterfully.

Lucan’s reason came back to him when he got a moment to breath. He savored it only for a blink before he shouted, “Move!” And turned to ascertain Heath’s safety. Thorley was shouldering his way through the gap they’d cut through the beasts along with the wounded man-at-arms, followed by Lilian who was muttering a spell under her breath. Not all of the beasts were dead, but Lucan wouldn’t stay to finish the deed. They’d wanted a path through, and now they had one. He had no doubt that they had paid for it with wounds of their own. He could feel some on himself already, but the rush of blood and fear was keeping their pain distant and negligible.

Soon, they extricated themselves from the mess of blood and fur, continuing down their path and leaving the surviving beasts to their fate, for surely, they would meet the giant lizard’s wrath.

They ran and ran, the thumps following and never stopping. They took to branching paths without marking them, heard the dsitant yips of Archsal’awas that were no doubt from the same nest they’d roused, and stumbled to brief stops to treat worsening wounds. Yet they never truly halted their escape. Because the thumps never stopped. They grew distant and times, but they never stopped. Perhaps the beast could smell them. Lucan had read that snakes smelled the air with their tongues, and that they were better than a thousand noses. He had been uncertain about the truthfulness of that, but he was beginning to become a believer.

Nothing stopped them for more than a few moments. That was until they heard a new noise. A droning echo that shook the air around them.

“Damn the gods,” Cordell swore. “That’s a shaft!”

“I know,” Lucan said. He’d read about the shafts thoroughly and the noise wasn’t far from what he’d expected.

“Let us hope not to meet it then,” Ryder said as they came to a stop.

“Fortune hasn’t exactly been our ally today,” Clifton said, speaking for the first time since they’d met the lizard.

Lucan was inclined to agree. They were at a fork in the passage, and the noise seemed to be coming from both sides of the fork. He’d have to decide on a path which could possibly end up with them meeting a shaft to the gods below. Or at least that was what they were supposed to be. No one returned from them, and they would swallow any who drew too close. If there was one warning everyone was given before they delved the depths of the Labyrinth, it was to avoid the damned shafts, no matter the cost. But the cost at this time would be their lives if they decided to turn back and face the gigantic lizard. So they would move forward and hope that misfortune didn’t abuse them too thoroughly on this day.

“We’ve been veering left for a while,” Lucan finally said. “It would be prudent to continue to do so, so we can eventually circle around and go up.”

“Left then.” Cordell nodded, concurring with his reasoning.

Seeing support from the most experienced among them, Lucan set his jaw with as much resolve as he could muster and led them forward, wary of the thumps that were once again drawing closer.

Not unexpectedly, they found that the shaft’s noise drawing closer as they paced on their chosen path. Misfortune was truly their unwanted friend today. Lucan cursed under his breath as he realized that they would inevitably meet the shaft.

Soon, the noise was no longer an echo but an immediate sound of droning wind from ahead. As they rounded the last bend in their path they came upon it, the shaft in all its deathly glory.

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